PBS with Closed Captions Solved

Channels DVR Server
#1

I have finally found a solution to getting PBS with CC, but it requires that you have PlayOn.

  1. Have PlayOn installed
  2. Sign up for a free account with PBS.
  3. Register your PBS account in PlayOn.
  4. Wait one week after desired program premiers on PBS.
  5. Download program using PlayOn.

If you don't wait a week you will get a message saying that the content requires a PBS Passport subscription ($5/month). I'm not sure how long after the one week mark the content will still be available.

#2

You could just use ytdlp. Subs are usually downloaded too if you set it to download it

#3

I'm a Windows person. YT-DLP seems beyond my skill set. It took me quite a long time to get Docker running.

#4

There's plenty of guis for that for windows. Just use one of them

#5

I loaded YT-DLP-GUI and got it to download a program from PBS. It came through without Closed Captions. Unless I'm missing something, this is not a solution to my problem.

#6

Did you set it to download subs automatically?

#7

I found no instructions or settings menu. There was a checkbox saying "Subtitles". I checked it. I tried Format=Best and Format=MP4.

#8

Ooohh...I get it now. You're using a different gui. Here's one I use

#9

I loaded the GUI you are using. I checked: "Embed subtitles in video file". Still got no subtitles.

1 Like
#10

Yeah...probably is DRMed then

It wasn't for me but I don't use PBS often nowadays

#11

There are only 3 shows I ever watch on PBS, but 2 of them are British. Bad hearing and British accent adds up to needing subtitles. As I said at the start, PlayOn passes PBS with subtitles, so I'll stick with them.

#12

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